


stone to stone

by Verbyna



Series: kent parson poems [3]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 22:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282453
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: there are other fears, smaller and meaner,but everything lands or crashes andnothing spins off-orbit. not in life.





	stone to stone

**Author's Note:**

> god, i wish i could finish any of my wips, but here's some poetry instead?

i.  
everything falls, including him, and that’s  
a good thing. it’s why fear of heights is not the problem.  
there are other fears, smaller and meaner,  
but everything lands or crashes and  
nothing spins off-orbit. not in life.  
all that rises must fall and every triumph  
is paid for in blood, in friendships, in deep-water hours  
where he can’t hear anything, anything, anything.  
hours where the body screams and he can’t,  
can’t hear himself, can’t remember why he’s  
doing this to everyone, even to himself -  
pushing so far from the light, from the shore, from a self  
he must live with the rest of the time.

ii.  
he does this to himself. he does. he takes what he can  
so he won’t count the losses,  
the bad dreams, the missed calls, the hole  
down the middle of him, the ways he could be  
better, but not the best. he takes “best”  
and lets his shore-self deal with the rest.  
the hole down the middle is hungrier than him,  
but not stronger. the lesson in his bones  
is harsh and true: he’s stronger than his heart,  
as long as it’s beating. he runs and runs and doesn’t outrun  
anything, but he goes places. pedestal to pedestal,  
stone to stone, scream to scream.  
the best.

iii.  
he can laugh about it but he’s not allowed to cry.  
they call his hard work luck, which it is:  
he was given a body that can take his ambition  
and run it into a podium, not the ground.  
all he can give is thanks.  
he is a lot. overwhelming. luck, as he sees it,  
was the first kiss that reached him  
and the heft of the cup; the rest was work.  
work in the bedroom,  
work to hold two heads above water,  
to hold his head up  
when the second head sunk. to lift the cup steadily,  
and look proud, like it was talent sweeping him  
forward and not the desperate beat of his heart.  
bones broke, but he didn’t.

iv.  
his heart shrunk, died in his chest  
before it could grow.  
he built a tomb around it; a memorial,  
stone to stone, trophy to trophy.  
he keeps flowers in the house. lilies and carnations,  
sweet and rotten, pretty like a wreath,  
like the bouquets they give him.  
here lies so-and-so, gone before his time,  
here is the x that marks the spot,  
the nothingness he’s meant for.  
sometimes he could swear he hears  
the crowds chanting when he cries himself to sleep.  
sometimes he sleeps, just like that. not often.  
often enough.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @soundlikepenance


End file.
